Fandom: Bomberman.
Pairing: Zoniha/Regulus.
Summary: Not all the surprises in the dark are unpleasant.
Rating: R for language and the two non-explicit sex scenes.
Notes: Holy crap, the plotbunny for this one blindsided me out of freakin' nowhere on Saturday afternoon. Seriously. I was lying in bed, randomly thinking about something vaguely related to writing fanfiction, and wham-ka-bam, the plotbunny arriveth with much fanfare and wielding a cat o' nine thousand tails ten feet long! Oh, yes, you bet I sat my ass down to write this thing even though I had a contest entry for a fanfic contest and an art commissions from a friend to work on. Given the random nature of the inspiration and how (relatively) fast I wrote this, it's probably a little more "bzuhwhat?" than usual even by Sora standards. In fact, this fic(lette) will probably only make sense to two people: myself and
dantaron, and quite frankly I don't even think it makes sense to me. Especially since I'd originally imagined the entire thing as only two scenes, but then a few more scenes spun themselves out in my mind and suddenly the original two didn't seem adequate anymore. I dunno lol?Anyway. Yes. You are, indeed, reading the fandom/rating combination correctly. Rule 34 and all that. In my defense, I'm using my human mutations of the characters - a decent example of Zoniha and Regulus can be found here: http://tempest-of-the-dawn.deviantart.com/art/Holidays-Do-Not-Make-Sense-70927463
Title comes from a kickass Ali Project song. Little factoid about the word "ankoku": a more literal translation of it into English is more like "darker than pitch black", but apparently in Japanese there's a deeper and wider meaning to this term that encompasses all the different types of darkness, literal and metaphorical. Ah, I love language. Never will I forgive my parents for giving up on trying to teach Cebuano to me as a child just because I demanded that they "stop speaking Spanish" to me.
The first time Zoniha had sex with Regulus in the dark, it had been a total surprise. She'd been flirting with him in the living room of her then-newly acquired apartment, amusing herself at his expense. Well, truth be told, she could never really figure out if it was truly "at his expense", since he rarely gave any indication of whether he disliked the attention from her or not. In many ways, flirting with him was like pole dancing: it looked sexy and intimate to outsiders, but the lack of reciprocation from the pole was rather unfulfilling for the dancer herself. Still, if Regulus wasn't outright rejecting her, Zoniha had absolutely no problems invading his personal space for her own entertainment. In this particular instance, she hadn't even been as outright amorous as she could have been; she'd simply hugged him tightly from behind, resting her cheek against his back and babbling randomly about her new stints as a fashion model. It was, overall, standard procedure for how conversations between them tended to go.
But then the raging thunderstorm outside killed the lights in the apartment, leaving the two of them draped in the last few tendrils of stormy twilight that snuck in through the window. With all of her usual playfulness, Zoniha had whispered something about needing to be saved from the scary shadows, one of her hands sliding around and down to the front of his torso.
She had not expected him to turn around and draw her into a breath-stealing kiss that ended up with him pinning her firmly against the couch, his hips between her legs.
Zoniha fucked him that night, of course. It was a little awkward, given that the couch the two of them were on was hardly the most comfortable thing in the universe, but ultimately the experience ranked high on Zoniha's list of most memorable sexual trysts. Regulus was not the most attentive, frequent, or experienced of lovers, but he was good enough, and being with him held an intensity unmatched by anyone else she'd been with. The darkness, Regulus' own element, only underscored that intensity, amplifying the shared sensations to nearly blinding levels. True, the lack of light had its obvious problems concerning visibility, but it gave Zoniha the best excuse to grope Regulus to her heart's content, and like hell she was going to pass up any chance to further explore what she considered the most gorgeous example of the male body she'd ever seen in her long life.
And so it was that, in the scattered times that the two of them had made love in the decades since, it was under the cover of darkness. Regulus had never specifically requested it, like one might request dimming the lights; it was just that whenever he wanted Zoniha, it also happened to be dark (which happened more often than one might think in Regulus' presence). She'd eventually caught onto this pattern, and would subtly and strategically place herself in his way whenever the conditions were favorable. It didn't always work, obviously. But that was compensated for by the fact that Regulus still managed to pleasantly surprise her.
Like tonight, for instance.
B-O-M-B
When she returned to Regulus' condo from a quick trip to the mall to get Zhael a birthday present, Zoniha had dropped by his bedroom to personally give him the bag of chocolate-and-caramel-covered almonds she'd bought for him. She found him lightly napping on the bed, still fully clothed. "Hey," she said, sitting down by him and tapping the bag against his cheek. "Got you something."
Regulus let out a soft groan as he opened his eyes. He turned to see what had disturbed his sleep, and he blinked twice.
"This is what you were looking for, right?" she asked.
He sat up and took the bag from her, studying it by the soft ribbons of light that spilled through the slightly ajar door, the only source of illumination in the room. "Yes." He reached over to set it on a bedside table, near a digital clock.
Zoniha didn't bother to wait for the "thank you" she knew she'd never directly get from him. "Get anything done today, or are you sleeping on the job?"
Regulus yawned a bit. "There isn't much I can do until Xio returns with a full report of the losses over in the Tail," he said. "Though I do have an idea of what I'd like to do."
"Strangle Madrulla with barbed wire?"
"Close enough." He snorted contemptuously. "I find it hard to believe that such an incompetent could have risen to the top rank of the Basilisk Cross, but the Cross seems to have been crumbling lately. Of all times to not have Behemos in charge, it has to be now."
"No kidding. It'd be easier just to bug him about the attacks over the network instead of having to go through a bunch of minions to talk to Madrulla."
"That, and the Lord of the Frozen Wastes isn't as stupid as he looks. He wouldn't have dared trespass into the Tail even now. Madrulla is overreaching, and he's annoying the other interests in the Tail as well." He exhaled slowly. "It worries me, though, that the Cross seems to have earned the backing of Seer's Sun."
"I don't see the problem. They're just a small-time bunch of spiritual crazies."
"They were. I think Madrulla has managed to infiltrate them and turn them into a front-group for more questionable dealings. We'll have to wait until Xio comes back, but I believe Seer's Sun is turning an impressive profit for the Cross already. That may be enough for them to do some serious damage, more so than they've already done."
Zoniha pursed her lips. "How much?"
"Enough."
How odd: he was avoiding answering her question. Regulus was usually rather free with describing the lows and the...well...lower lows of running an organized crime syndicate with her, even though after all this time she was only unofficially associated with said syndicate. Well, if he wasn't going to talk, he wasn't going to talk. "If you need anything, I'll be watching the late night showing of Cobra Handle," she said, standing up to leave.
Regulus's hand shot out and caught Zoniha's wrist.
She let out a soft gasp at the touch of his skin against hers, and she turned back to stare at him. His expression was arrogantly blank, as always...but his body told Zoniha all that she needed to know. The tension ran through his arm and hand like metal wire, seeming to pierce her through her skin; he breathed slightly faster, with tightly closed lips. "You really need to learn how to ask nicely for things," she muttered, shaking her head. She crawled on the bed and on top of him, leaning over to kiss him softly on the lips.
Zoniha had intended to take her time with Regulus, to bring every pleasure to him that she could when she wasn't busy denying that very same pleasure to him, forcing him to want and want until that want was practically seared into every part of him. But when Regulus flipped her onto her back and bit into the side of her neck, sucking on the flesh there with his arms clutching her tightly to his chest, she changed her mind. The games could wait, she thought amusedly to herself, closing her eyes and losing herself in the warmth of him. Sometimes, a woman just wanted to fuck.
He took her harder than she remembered him ever doing, wringing repeated gasps of his name from deep within her throat and perhaps lower, racking her body with raw pleasure. There wasn't so much finesse to it as there was a burning desire to own and to conquer. Such an emotion was not new to Zoniha, who had been acquainted with the world of the bedroom since she was thirteen. But where she merely played at submission with others, she felt the full force of total surrender whenever she was with Regulus. She gave completely and fully to whatever he demanded of her, and suddenly found that she had the strength only to savor the wonders Regulus pressed upon her senses - and what sweet, precious strength it was. And when he entered her, and brought her to climax, Zoniha shuddered violently and arched her back, and she knew nothing else but this thing that possessed her and seized her and caused her to cry out and to clamp her legs around Regulus' hips with startling force and somewhere far away she heard Regulus call her name with a strangled sort of sound before the two of them crashed back onto the bed, utterly spent and gasping for air.
They lay against each other for a while, sweaty and silent, still entwined. Zoniha still had Regulus in her arms, though she'd since managed to loosen her hands from his back, leaving more than a fair share of crescent-shaped nail marks. She was about to drift off to a hazy half-reverie of satisfaction when she heard Regulus speak her name again, his hot breath brushing her ear. She was surprised - he had never acknowledged her after sex, either immediately after or in the days following. The thought had struck her before that he considered their sessions a shameful part of his life, a "dirty little secret" if the cliche was to be employed. Zoniha felt offended at the idea that he might think of her this way, but perhaps she was being hypocritical. After all, she was everyone's dirty little secret.
"Why do you let me do this to you?" he was asking.
"Do what?"
"This."
Zoniha rolled her eyes. Leave it to Regulus to whip out the general specifics. "Because I like it," she said, holding him closer. "Why the hell else would I do it? Besides" - and she lowered her voice to a seductive, husky tone to hide the naked truth in her next words - "I'd let you do anything to me. And I'd do anything for you."
"Hmph." Regulus pulled away from her with a soft groan. He lay down on his back next to her, gazing up at the ceiling as he loosely rested his forearms on his stomach. "Such an attitude doesn't suit you."
She smacked his shoulder lightly before running a hand through his dark hair. "I love how you talk like I actually give a fuck what you think. That arrogance is one of your endearing traits, you know."
"How peculiar that you're the only one who ever says that." A long silence fell before he spoke again. "You would do anything I ask of you," Regulus said, his voice wavering between a statement and a question.
Zoniha blinked at him, startled. "In case you've not gotten the memo, I've only killed, oh, at least sixty guys for you in the time that I've known you," she responded. "I'm pretty sure that qualifies as 'anything'."
"That wasn't so much me giving an order as it was you taking it upon yourself to run with a suggestion."
"Ha! How male of you to dodge responsibility like that. Gonna ask me something, or are you going to back down on that, too?"
"You may not like it."
"How thoughtful of you to consider what I might or might not like. It's rare to find a man that does that, you know!"
"I'd like you to marry me."
A beat.
Zoniha sat up and whirled on him. "...what?"
"Legal reasons," he explained calmly, not even blinking. "To put it as succinctly as possible, there are several important documents and procedures relating to managing the Obsidian Phoenix that should be managed by a trustworthy individual, a sort that seems to be in nonexistent supply lately. Were we to be legally married, most of that would, by law, pass directly into your power should something unfortunate happen to me."
"'Something unfortunate'? Reg, what the hell is going on?"
"Merely that there seem to be more people with divided loyalties than I thought within the Phoenix. I no longer even trust those who report directly to me. It's a bit of an annoyance when one considers the situation regarding Madrulla and his command of the Basilisk Cross." He smirked slightly. "Of course, I don't plan to die for a good while yet, but I won't have others calling me a fool when I've left this mortal coil."
Zoniha didn't even try to rein in her shock. She was sure she looked absolutely ridiculous right now, staring wide-eyed at Regulus with her mouth twitching as she tried to figure out something to say, forgetting for the moment that it would be a bit difficult to say anything if she weren't breathing. But what could she say, really? She hadn't seen this one coming at all.
"Fucking hell in the ass," Zoniha finally muttered, letting out a soft breath. "You're serious."
Regulus seemed mildly affronted. "I wouldn't be asking such a thing if I weren't," he said. "However, I won't hold you to your earlier claim of doing anything I ask of you. There are other ways of working around this, but doing things this way would be the easiest route for me - though I understand that it would also be rather troublesome for you."
Zoniha lay down again, suddenly feeling very lost and vulnerable. Her fingers clutched gently at the bedsheets as she mulled over her answer in her mind.
She was no idiot. By this point in their acquaintance, she knew how Regulus worked, how he thought. There was no sentimentality involved here, only pragmatism and an ounce of prevention, along with a second possible death sentence on her head (the first was for possessing eternal youth when she worked alongside those who nearly killed themselves attempting to attain the exact same state through costly plastic surgery). If Zoniha married him, she'd just be taking on a second job in addition to her modeling, and said second job wasn't exactly going to be working at the local steak joint.
Still, she couldn't help but be flattered at the immense amount of implicit trust that this request involved. Regulus had essentially asked Zoniha to be his second-in-command of the Obsidian Phoenix, if not co-commander. For someone who usually played the part of a hitwoman and/or an outside opinion, this was huge. But was it too big a situation for her to handle?
Through it all, the teenage girl in her mind shrieked: Regulus wants to marry me! Regulus wants to marry me!
"Oh, very well," Zoniha said cheerily, smiling at him. "If it'll help you out, then this Zoniha will certainly marry you. Behind every great man is a woman, after all! I don't see why you'd be the exception."
"As you say." Regulus turned over and pulled the comforter over himself. "We'll deal with the details tomorrow, then, if you don't change your mind by the morning."
"Such a heartwarming reply. Did you learn that from a romance novel?"
He didn't answer.
She rolled her eyes. "Men," she grumbled as she burrowed under the covers herself. But she fell asleep with a smile on her face.
B-O-M-B
Zoniha woke up the next morning to an empty bed and a sudden cloud of melancholy haunting her mind. Slightly disoriented, she stumbled out of bed and, after putting on her skirt and shirt from yesterday, wandered out of the bedroom.
She found Regulus at the kitchen table, finishing up a plate of pancakes with jam. He regarded her with a brief look, then with a strange one as he realized that she wasn't going to greet him in the usual manner this particular morning.
"Did you really ask me to marry you last night?" Zoniha mumbled tiredly, staring back at him out of half-lidded eyes.
"...yes."
"Did I really say 'yes' to you?"
"Yes."
"...I think I'm in the wrong universe," she said, and she shuffled over to her bedroom to change.
B-O-M-B
The two of them headed out to the city clerk's office later that day to deal with the ribbons upon ribbons of red tape for acquiring a civil marriage license. Once they finished, they left the building, intending to walk to a restaurant nearby for lunch. Zoniha gave a dramatic sigh. "Well, if that wasn't the most unromantic marriage ever," she quipped, rolling her eyes. "I'm sure they would've let us borrow one of those hideous potted plastic plants to use in an impromptu wedding ceremony."
"I'd thought that working in the fashion industry would have taught you better taste than that," said Regulus.
Zoniha stared at him. "If I didn't know you better, I'd think that was a joke."
He shrugged imperceptibly and continued walking.
"All right, so no fancy schmancy ceremonies, or even itsy bitsy ones. But...surely this Zoniha is entitled to have a ring at least?" She batted her eyes girlishly at Regulus.
He glanced at her curiously. "I don't see that it's necessary," he said. "This is for practical purposes only, after all."
Zoniha only rolled her eyes again. "It was just a joke." Except not.
"Either way, the point of this is that you've become my hidden card with regards to who can control the Obsidian Phoenix - you have enough interests outside that I have no fear that you'll try to go against me. It would be preferable to keep this as quiet as possible. Otherwise, you'll be set up as a major target."
"Mister Obvious strikes again! I figured that one out already." It didn't stop Zoniha from feeling a little upset. She knew she was being stupid and childish - it had been clear from the start what this entire arrangement was about.
But to be so close to him and so far...
Regulus suddenly stopped in front of the restaurant they'd been heading to. "There's a fair amount of people here today," he muttered, looking annoyed. "It's rather crowded."
"That's just as well. I've been craving something different. Why don't we check out La Cosa Nostra? I think it's only a little further down from here. Moira-doll loves it, and she says it's always easy to get a table."
"If you say so."
B-O-M-B
Zoniha left the next week for a photo shoot in Palome in the Thalian Empire, which served to distract her quite sufficiently from the lace-wrapped anvil that had just dropped into her life courtesy of a certain shadow elemental. Swept up in a world where everyone adored her - superficially at least - and draped in the finest of apparel, she could forget being mostly ignored by the one person that mattered the most to her.
At least until she came back.
"I'm back!" she called out in a singsong as she bumped open the front door to enter the condo, dragging in her luggage and a canvas bag of miscellany. She had a place of her own (and a very nice one at that), but ever since first coming to live with Regulus, what was it, ninety years ago or so, she'd gotten used to thinking of him as "home." He'd never officially kicked her out: looking for her own place had been her own idea. Still, when he moved into his current residence here at this particular high-rise, it came as a surprise that he'd left an extra room empty and bare. Regulus had never said what the room was for...just that she could "use it as necessary." Oh, yes. "Necessary" indeed.
Zoniha didn't wait for a response to her greeting. She just wanted to dump her stuff off as fast as possible, because her arms were killing her and it looked like all the weight-lifting she'd been doing for the past few months wasn't coming to much. So she stumbled over to her room, kicking the door open.
She nearly dropped her bag on the floor when she saw the little black velvet box lying on her bed.
In a daze, she walked forward, wondering if she was just hallucinating, like when Regulus had first asked her to marry him. But no, that little black box was still there, oddly centered in a patch of violet circles on the design of her blanket. Inside was a simple but elegant silver ring that slipped smoothly onto the fourth finger of her left hand when she put it on.
Zoniha sat down on her bed, her throat tight. For a moment, she hated Regulus, truly hated him with every fiber of her being, in this realm and the aethyric. Because every time she thought she could move on from him, every time she thought she could stop caring what he might think of her, he did or said something that made her love him all over again.
She cried silently, clasping her left hand close to herself.
Regulus walked into her room; she'd accidentally left the door open. "Should I ask what's the matter?"
Zoniha gazed at him for a while. Her pulse raced as she struggled to say something that might detract from the patheticness of her crying in front of him - not that it was the first time she'd done so. "This Zoniha is a diva, but she's no spoiled brat to be appeased with presents," she said, her voice meeker than she would've liked. "Though the token is certainly...appreciated."
"Does it fit correctly?"
She held up her hand to show him. With a flash of surprise, she suddenly saw the ring's twin hanging on a thin silver chain from around Regulus' neck. "...you really are one impressive son-of-a-bitch," Zoniha muttered.
Regulus raised an eyebrow at her.
She only bowed her head, letting her long lavender hair drape around her like a veil. "Thank you," she whispered.
She saw his measured footsteps on the carpet as he approached her. She felt the warmth of his body and his elemental aura when he reached out to hold her close to him. She heard his voice speak murmured words - something that sounded vaguely like "j'tem" to her - words that she didn't understand, but they comforted her all the same.
Zoniha closed her eyes and let herself fall into her husband's arms.
